Drilling on new production well for the Hellisheidi plant in Iceland to start soon
Hellisheidi geothermal power plant by Reykjavik Energy, Iceland (source: flickr/ thinkgeoenergy, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
24 Jun 2015
The operator of the Icelandic Hellisheidi plant is planning drilling of an additional well to push up power production again.
Icelandic utility Our Nature (formerly Reykjavik Energy) is about to start drilling for a new production well for its Hellisheidi geothermal power plant. This will be the first new production well drilled since 2009.
The new well is drilled to secure more steam and take out less water from the geothermal reservoir. With the new well it is planned to give other water-rich holes some rest.
The Hellisheidi plant had problems to keep up production levels with production from its existing wells. The resource has not been able to keep up production levels of the installed 303 MW capacity and has been operating at 260 MW.
Therefore power production has not been as much as needed and drilling of a new production is necessary to lift power generation capacity from an average of 262 MW (average 2014 to 2015) to the installed capacity of 303 MW.
This is seen as a normal procedure for a plant of this size and should help to run the plant sustainably in the coming years.
